re I am again!" he said. "I don't know whether I am a fool, Austin--I
hope I am--but there's something I want you to hear." He shut the door
behind him, glanced at the clock, and went on quickly. "Do you know a
sandy-haired boy who wears a red cap and rides a girl's bicycle?"

"Yes," I answered. "That's Powers's boy--Alban Powers."

"I thought I remembered the young beggar. That boy brought a note up to
Aunt Sarah while we were having tea--about a quarter past five, it must
have been, I think. Aunt Sarah pounced on the note, read it, said there
was no answer, and then handed the note over to my father. 'Who's it
from?' he asked peevishly. 'You'll see if you read it,' she said. I
asked if I was _de trop_, but my father signed to me to sit where I was.
He read the note, and handed it back to Aunt Sarah. 'What are you going
to do?' she asked. 'Nothing,' he said. She pursed up her lips and
shrugged her shoulders--she made it pretty plain what she thought of
that answer. 'Nothing!' she sort of whispered, throwing her eyes up to
the ceiling. Then he broke out: 'I've forbidden the subject to be
mentioned!'--but he looked very unhappy and uncomfortable. Nobody said
anything for a bit; Aunt Sarah looked obstinate-silent and my father
unhappy-silent. I tried to talk about something or other, but it was no
good. Then the man came in with another note, saying a groom had brought
it for his lordship. Well, he read that--and it seemed to please him a
bit better."

"Well it might!" I remarked. "It was from Miss Driver and it said what
he wanted."

"Wait a bit, Austin. He sat with this note--Miss Driver's--in his hand,
turning it over and over. He didn't offer to show it to either of us,
but he kept looking across at Aunt Sarah. I took up a paper, but I
watched them from behind it. He was weighing something in his mind; she
wouldn't look at him--playing sulky still over the business of the first
note, the one that boy in the red cap had brought. At last he got up and
went over to her. He spoke rather low, but I heard--well, he could have
sent me away, or gone away with her himself, if he hadn't wanted me to
hear. 'A note I've had from Miss Driver makes it very proper for me to
call on her this evening,' he said. Aunt Sarah looked up, wide awake in
a minute. 'You'll go this evening--to Breysgate?' she asked. 'Yes, at
seven.' 'At seven,' she repeated after him with a nod. 'But perhaps
she'll be out.' 'That's possible,' he answered. 'B